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The purpose of this paper is to understand and explain the financial disclosure processes among Malaysian local authorities (MLAs).

Employing semi-structured interviews, data were collected from 26 members in five case study organisations, and interpreted using Gibbins et al. (1990, 1992) framework of financial disclosure.

The study finds that financial disclosure is influenced by a hierarchical structure consisting of accountants, the Financial Accounts Committee, the mayor and other managers. The decision to disclose or not disclose was influenced by how sensitive the issue was. External auditors and mediators influenced both the identification of issues, disclosure position and disclosure output. Though there are many laws governing financial accounting, MLAs opportunistically chose to apply the Federal Treasury Circular largely because the external auditors used it.

This study contributes to the literature by illuminating who makes disclosure decisions, what influences these decisions and how. The study reveals hitherto un-researched contextual factors that affect disclosure, namely, religion and external auditors and the opportunistic choice of which laws and regulations to apply in financial disclosure. Future studies might want to apply this approach in other contexts to see what we can learn from them.

Using case studies in the study of financial disclosure provided valuable insights into the complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon of financial information disclosure. The application of Gibbins et al. (1990, 1992) framework in the public sector and in Malaysia is novel.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss developments in governance in Africa and the opportunities this offers to accounting, auditing and accountability researchers. The paper also provides an overview of the other contributions in this accounting, auditing and accountability special issue.

This paper provides a contemporary literature review on governance and accountability in Africa, identifying the key developments in public sector reform and the research gaps that still need to be filled. While the paper focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa, the authors draw on examples from Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa – geographically representing east, west, and south of the continent.

The paper finds that governance has emerged as a crucial issue that has a significant effect on the economic development of African countries. This has been associated with a myriad of reforms which range from anti-corruption measures to public financial management reforms. The authors find that the implementation and effects of these reforms have not been adequately researched by accounting scholars.

This is a review of a limited literature. Empirical research and a more comprehensive review of the literature from public administration and other disciplines might provide other new insights for research on governance in Africa. A further limitation is that the study has focused on a review of the most recent reforms while earlier reforms should be of particular interest to accounting historians.

This paper and other contributions to this special issue of AAAJ provide a basis and an agenda for accounting scholars seeking to undertake interdisciplinary research on Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: first, what contracts, instruments and accounting activities constitute Australia’s offshore asylum seeker processing policy in practice? Second, how are notions of legitimacy and accountability mediated through the network constituted by this policy?

The paper is located in the critical interpretivist approach to accounting research. It is based on an exhaustive documentary analysis. Policy documents, contract documents, records of parliamentary inquiries (Hansard) and legislation were analysed drawing on a network policy perspective.

The paper finds that the Australian Government has sought to escape its accountability obligations by employing a range of approaches. The first of these approaches is the construction of a network involving foreign states, private corporations and non-government organizations. The second is through a watered down accountability regime and refusal to be accountable for the day-to-day life of asylum seekers in offshore processing centres through a play with the meaning of “effective control”. Yet while the policy network seems designed to create accountability gaps, the requirement within the network to remain financially accountable undermines the governments claims not to be responsible for the conditions in the detention camps.

The paper focuses largely on the period starting from when Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister to the death in Papua New Guinea of asylum seeker Reza Barati on 17 February 2014. Earlier periods are beyond the scope of this paper.

The paper will result in the identification of deficiencies inhuman rights accountability for extra-territorialized and privatised immigration detention and may contribute towards the formulation of effective policy recommendations to overcome such deficiencies. The paper also provides empirical data on, and academic understanding of, immigration detention outsourcing and offshoring.

The paper will inform debate regarding treatment of unauthorized maritime arrivals and asylum seekers generally.

The paper provides the first detailed and full understanding of the way Australia’s offshore asylum seeker processing policy is practiced. The paper also provides an empirical analysis of the way national policy and its associated accountability mechanisms emerge in response to the competing legitimacy claims of the international community and national electorate.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and critically evaluate the systems of accounting and accountability for the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in Kenya. It suggests a new framework of accounting and accountability that places the goals and aspirations expressed in public discourse at the centre of accountability.

The theoretical insights of Bourdieu and Foucault are mobilized so as to tease out the nature of power relations between the various fields associated with the CDF in Kenya. The study analyses newspaper commentaries as text for identifying the main themes associated with the management of the CDF in Kenya.

The paper finds that the CDF's systems of accounting and accountability are skewed towards the needs of centralized national planning and development, contrary to its expressed aim of bringing about citizens' participation in development.

Use of newspaper commentaries and reports does not necessarily represent the views of the majority of the people of Kenya.

A new framework is suggested which places the goals and aspirations of public discourse at the centre of accounting with the various capitals suggested by these goals and aspirations forming the dimensions on which the CDF can be accounted for. Novel forms of accounting and accountability are suggested which include presentation of CDF implementation and results at public forums where the managers of CDF can be interrogated on the basis of the goals and aspirations expressed in public discourse.

Study of the CDF systems of accounting and accountability is a unique contribution to accounting for development in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to make intelligible the rationalities and mechanisms through which markets have been proffered as alternatives or complements to traditional welfare‐based provision and the effect of this development on the subjectivity of workers.

The research involved collection of archival data, personal encounters and in‐depth interviews with managers, staff and elected representatives at a local authority in New Zealand. Michel Foucault's concept of governmentality is mobilised to interpret these data.

The paper finds that the mandatory changes required by legislation are associated with efforts to constitute local authority workers as business‐like subjects through disciplinary mechanisms and technologies of the self. While markets have permeated this local authority, with some managers and staff claiming to work in a business‐like manner and transact with each other as customers, these discourses have not vanquished the traditional concern of working for one organisation to serve the community.

While the results of this study are not generalisable to other contexts, they show how the introduction of New Public Management in a specific context is associated with a contest between the traditional discourses of community and public service, and the more recent ones of enterprise and customer. The paper illuminates the pathologies associated with these new technologies and how their implementation is often divergent from the rationalities in the name of which they are promoted.

The paper will contribute to ongoing debate on how best to deliver public goods and services and especially, the limits and potential of markets.

The paper's mobilisation of Foucault's governmentality framework in the study of a local authority case study in a contemporary setting is relatively unusual.